smart thinking about sex, intimacy, and life in a body

DID YOU SEE: NY Times Magazine on sex education

Bless Julie Metzger. The former pediatric nurse (originally from Pittsburgh, now based in Portland OR) has found a smart and effective way to educate adolescents about their sexual bodies. Bonnie Rochman’s terrific article in the New York Times Magazine March 29, “Rewriting ‘The Talk’,” describes the two-part course on puberty Metzger designed and has taken around the country. Each class lasts two hours, and there are separate classes “For Girls Only” and “For Boys Only,” attended by kids and their parents.

On a recent winter evening, Metzger stood at the door to the hospital auditorium and greeted every mother-daughter pair with animation, as if she’d known them for years, and told each girl to take an index card and a ballpoint pen with the name of her company, Great Conversations, on it. The first hour of each class amounts to an informative stand-up routine — Metzger sticks a sanitary pad on her shoulder to show that it won’t slip around — but the second hour is devoted to answering the girls’ questions. Metzger believes that having kids pose questions fosters intimacy and allows parents to hear for themselves what their children’s concerns are. In the first class, when the focus is on the physical changes caused by puberty, Metzger tends to be asked: Why do we have pubic hair? What does it feel like to have a growth spurt? How do I know when I’m getting my period?

As the girls scribbled on their index cards, some used their elbows to block an inquisitive mother’s gaze. (Bolder girls will sometimes go so far as to write things like “This is from Susan in the third row, in the red shirt.”) After intermission, during which Metzger collected the cards into a disorderly pile, she put on a pair of thick red reading glasses and began.

“Can boys stick a tampon in their penis?” she read. “Absolutely not. They can try, but I wouldn’t recommend it.” She flung the card to the floor.

“Do you always get a baby from having sex?” she read. “My husband and I have been married 28 years. We may have had sex over 1,000 times. I am happy to report we do not have 1,000 children. There are ways to show and share your love without having a baby.” Another card flew out of her hand.

Metzger’s company represents a distinct shift from the usual approach to sex education. She believes that adolescence and puberty should be the purview of children and their parents, not solely that of children and their teachers. “The idea that we are talking to two generations at the same time is at the core of this,” she says. Because they are voluntary, Great Conversations courses are free to be more frank than school-based sex ed; they can sidestep detractors who think kids shouldn’t be taught about masturbation, for example.

Check out the whole article online here and let me know what you think.